Buch lesen: «In Sunny Spain with Pilarica and Rafael», Seite 2

III
FORTUNES AND MISFORTUNES

THE eyes of the Gypsy King began to glitter like jet beads. He had caught sight of an omnibus toiling up the Alhambra hill, and after the first a second, and after the second a third. Tourists! A party of foreign tourists! A host of golden, gullible tourists! Ah, Xarifa would be pleased with him, after all. She would toss him off a panful of crisp fritters for supper and then sit with him in the mouth of their cave, enjoying all the gypsy jest and music. With surprising nimbleness he climbed to the top step of the fountain, and there he stood, brandishing his hat high above his head and bowing and beckoning and twisting and bowing again until Pilarica turned quite giddy just from watching him.

“Come away!” ordered Rafael, tugging at her hand, and she followed her brother to the ivied wall beneath that bell-tower on whose top the first cross was lifted after the Christians had taken the Alhambra from the Moors. Here Rafael busied himself in gathering together a few smooth stones, as much in the shape of Spanish rolls as he could find, and arranging them in a row.

“Count out!” he commanded Pilarica, and the little girl, dancing up and down the line as she sang, proceeded to touch with an airy foot one stone and then another and another in turn.

 
“The garden of our house it is
The funniest garden yet,
For when it rains and rains and rains,
The garden it is wet.
And now we bow,
Skip back and then advance,
For who know how
To make a bow
Know how to dance.
AB – C – AB – C
DE – FG – HI – J.
If your worship does not love me,
Then a better body may.
AB – C – AB – C,
KL – MN – OP – Q.
If you think you do not love me,
I am sure I don’t love you.”
 

Before the song was ended, Rafael had clapped his magic cap over the stone designated by Q and stood, with red lips firmly pressed together, abiding results.

“Sing something else, Pilarica,” he entreated, “or else I cannot, cannot wait.”

And Pilarica, with a quick instinct for what would hold his attention, piped up the song by which Spanish children keep in memory the name of a true patriot. By the middle of the second line, Rafael’s fresh treble was chiming in with hers, though his gaze never wavered from the wonder-working fez.

 
“As he came from the Senate,
Men whispered to Prim:
‘Be wary, be wary,
For life and for limb.’
Then answered the General:
‘Come blessing, come bane,
I live or I die
In the service of Spain.’
 
 
“In the Street of the Turk,
Where the starlight was dim,
Nine cowardly bullets
Gave greeting to Prim.
The best of the Spaniards
Lay smitten and slain,
And the new King he died for
Came weeping to Spain.”
 

“Now! now!” cried Rafael, and whisked the red cap off the stone, which looked – precisely as it had looked before. Not one flake of puffy crust, not one white, tempting crumb betrayed whatever change might have come to pass under that magic covering. The children fell flat on their stomachs on either side of this doubtful substance and first Rafael, then Pilarica, thrust out a red tongue and licked it cautiously. The taste was gritty. Rafael tried to take a bite, but his white young teeth slipped helplessly off the flinty surface. The boy squatted back on his heels, his small fists clenched, and glared darkly out before him.

“Perhaps one of the others – ” faltered Pilarica.

“They are all alike,” interrupted Rafael, in a voice harsh with mounting anger. “They are stones, just stones, and they always will be stones. I knew it all the time.”

“Our rolls are very, very hard once in a while,” ventured the little girl again, but this remark was met with scornful silence.

“Or I might hunt for a toad,” she persisted, dismayed by Rafael’s sombre stare. “Toads are much softer than stones, and perhaps – ”

But the boy had bounded to his feet and was stamping furiously upon the magic cap.

“The gypsy is a humbug, and the cap is a humbug,” he exclaimed chokingly, “and I have been cheated out of my watch and chain, – my silver watch and chain that my father gave me. I will not bear it. I am going down the hill to meet Rodrigo, and he will make that lying old thief give them back to me.”

And without another glance toward the little sister whom he had so loftily taken under his protection, Rafael, bare-headed, dashed away and disappeared down the steep avenue by which Rodrigo usually came home from the Institute.

The tears trembled for a moment on Pilarica’s long eyelashes, as she found herself thus forsaken, but she was a practical little person on occasion, as the sisters of impulsive brothers needs must be, and so she picked up the red fez, brushed away the dust, folded it neatly and hid it in her bodice. Then she scattered the stones far and wide, so that Rafael might not come upon that unlucky row again and be stung by the reminder of his loss.

And what next? For a moment the child looked longingly down, from her green nook, on the outspread city of Granada, with its clusters of gray towers and spires that seemed to be talking together in the purple air about the times that were. Rafael was allowed to go half-way down the Alhambra hill to meet Rodrigo, and sometimes Rodrigo, on a holiday, would take his little brother into the city with him for a whole afternoon, but Rodrigo, who was a student and knew everything, said it was best for girls to bide at home. Only yesterday Rafael had gone into Granada with Rodrigo, to see a wonder-working troupe of jugglers, and returned rejoicing in the red fez. An Arab peddler, who was, as well, snake-charmer and sword-eater, pleased by the boy’s wide-eyed admiration of his exploits, had tossed it to him with the laughing words: “Red is the color of magic.” And Tia Marta went down to Granada sometimes with the donkey Shags for the frugal family supplies, but she could not be bothered with Pilarica, while Grandfather, who never found Pilarica a bother, was too feeble now for the confusion of the city streets and for the long climb back up the hill.

So the child lifted her wistful eyes from the proud old city to the far sweep of the plain beyond, a plain rich in gardens and vineyards, orchards and olive-groves, and then she looked out further yet to the ranks of snow-clad mountains that shut in the view. Those glistening summits made her lonely, and when a scamper of small feet came her way and a cry of eager voices called her name, Pilarica leapt down from her perch on the wall and let herself be swept along with the roguish little rabble of the Alhambra hill.

Tia Marta always scolded when Pilarica was found playing with the Alhambra children, for there were usually a few gypsies, rude and lawless, in the group, and some even of the Spaniards were so ill-bred as to make sport of strangers. But they were children, for all that, with the blithe laughter of children, and all the more determined to play with Pilarica because they knew that Pilarica was forbidden to play with them.

“To the Alhambra!” cried Arnaldo. “There are many people there, ugly people, with blue eyes, and hair the color of lemons, and faces flat like pesetas. There are so many that Don Francisco is as flustered as a fish in hot water and he has forgotten to lock the door after them. He will not notice us at all if we are careful to keep a court or two behind. But you must not run on and beg of the people, Zinga, and you, Leandro, must not be slipping your sly fingers into the ladies’ bags, or we shall all be driven out together.”

“I will do as I choose,” retorted the wild-haired gypsy girl, while the hawk-eyed gypsy lad, barely in his teens but already a skillful pickpocket, gripped the gay-handled knife in his belt and scowled defiance at Arnaldo.

Pilarica, frightened by the fierce looks, fell back with the little ones, Isabelita and Carmencita, chubby Pepito, and the gypsy two-year-olds, Rosita and Benito, letting the bigger and rougher children lead the way. So in two companies they tagged after the tourists up into the Court of Myrtles, with its great pool enclosed by myrtle hedges, and on to the Hall of the Ambassadors, whose walls are like lace of rare design and whose domed ceiling, all white and gold and blue, studded with starry figures, seems a bit of sky. When they had come to the Court of the Lions, whose multitude of white marble columns look, in their varied grouping, like guests frozen by some playful enchantment just as they were chatting together or musing apart in this exquisite throne-room of the Sultans, the smaller children began to lag. Plump Pepito sat down firmly on the floor. Carmencita, startled by the twelve marble lions that uphold the fountain-basin in the center, puckered up her face for a cry, and Pilarica, to divert her, started one of the circle-games in which Spanish children delight. Hand in hand, the little dancers tripped about like a ring of fairies, until Pilarica’s clear voice led them in the song of San Serení, the well-beloved Saint of Gentleness. All but the wee gypsies knew every stanza, singing lustily, and even Benito and Rosita acted out the gymnastic movements with the rest, kneeling, sitting, lying back and jumping up again, as the several verses directed.

 
“San Serení of the Mountain,
Our Saint of Courtesy,
I, as a good Christian,
Will drop upon my knee.
 
 
“San Serení of the Mountain,
Where the strong winds pass,
I, as a good Christian,
Will seat me on the grass.
 
 
“San Serení of the Mountain,
Where the white clouds fly,
I, as a good Christian,
Upon the ground will lie.
 
 
“San Serení of the Mountain,
Where earth and heaven meet,
I, as a good Christian,
Will spring upon my feet.”
 

Their own games were much more interesting to the children than the glories of the old Moorish palace, and they flocked about Pilarica, each clamoring for a favorite dance.

“Little Bird Pinta,” teased Isabelita.

“Little White Pigeons,” whined Carmencita, who was always on the verge of tears.

“Little Blind Hen,” shouted Pepito.

“Pin – Pige – Hen,” echoed the gypsy babies impartially.

“The Charcoal Woman,” wept Carmencita.

“Butterfly Tag,” coaxed Isabelita.

“Charcoal-Butter,” chimed in the obliging gypsy babies.

“Grasshopper! Grasshopper!” roared Pepito and thereupon began to skip about, his fat hands clasped under his knees, gasping as tunefully as he could:

 
“Grasshopper sent me an invitation
To come and share his occupation.
Grasshopper dear, how could I say no?
Grasshopper, Grasshopper, here I go!”
 

“Hush! hush!” urged Pilarica. “We will play Larán-larito, and Pepito shall be the cheese.”

So Pepito, easily rolling himself up into a round, soft ball, proudly occupied the center of the scene, while the others, suiting their action to the words of the song, danced about him, ever drawing nearer and nearer, ready for the final pounce.

 
“The shepherdess rose lightly
– Larán-larán-larito—
The shepherdess rose lightly
From off her heather seat – O.
 
 
“Her goats went leaping homeward
– Larán-larán-larito—
Her goats went leaping homeward
On nimble little feet – O.
 
 
“With strong young hands she milked them
– Larán-larán-larito—
With strong young hands she milked them
And made a cheese for treat – O.
 
 
“The kitty watched and wondered
– Larán-larán-larito—
The kitty crept and pondered
If it were good to eat – O.
 
 
“The kitty sprang upon it
– Larán-larán-larito—
The kitty sprang upon it,
As we spring on Pepito.”
 

But just at the thrilling moment when all the five kitties flung themselves upon the plump, indignant cheese, which struck out right and left with pudgy fists and defended itself as never cheese was known to do before, there arose a hubbub in the further halls of the Alhambra and the larger boys and girls came rushing back, pursued by Don Francisco, the guardian of the palace, and a purple-faced foreigner whose voice sounded as if he were using bad language.

Arnaldo seized the hand of Isabelita, Zinga made a snatch at Rosita, and even Leandro, flinging back a silver cigar-case as he ran, paused to catch up the toddling Benito, while Carmencita wailed so piteously and Pepito bawled so lustily that the big children who had no little brothers and sisters to look after hustled these two clamorous waifs along in the flight. But nobody took thought for Pilarica, who, terrified by the hue and cry, turned and fled down one arched passage after another, across dim chambers and through long galleries, until, at last, she could hear nothing but stillness anywhere about her, and that, queerly enough, frightened her more than all the noise had done.

IV
RAFAEL IN DISGRACE

IF Rafael had waited for his brother at the Gate of the Pomegranates, as usual, things might not have turned out quite so badly. For here the way from Granada up the Alhambra hill opens into three avenues, and the boy, in his impatience, having failed to meet Rodrigo on the shortest and steepest, dashed up again by the second and down by the third, and so managed to miss him altogether. For while Rafael, back once more at the Gate of the Pomegranates, tired out by so much headlong running, was cooling his parched throat at a runlet of sparkling water, Rodrigo was already at home, opening the gate of the old garden.

A tall, dark, graceful lad of eighteen, a scholar’s satchel strapped to his shoulders, he swung the gate wide and stepped back with much deference to make way for his companion.

“After you, sir,” he said.

But this companion, a man of middle age, sturdy and square-chinned, clad in the uniform of a naval engineer, stood motionless. His face, set in stern lines, was under perfect control, yet, as the son beside him half divined, it was harder for him to enter that fragrant, blossoming enclosure than to face the enemy’s cannon. For it was here that, something over three years ago, he had brought from their simple but pleasant lodgings in Cadiz his tenderly loved wife, hoping that the air of the hilltop might restore her failing strength. Half the savings of a frugal lifetime had been spent to call a great physician from Madrid. He prescribed little medicine, but an abundance of fresh eggs and pure goat’s milk and bade them, to the horror of their devoted maid, always known to the children as Tia Marta, set the invalid’s bed out in the open. But not the restful cool of the evening air nor the living warmth of the sunshine could avail, and to the man who halted at the gate this beautiful garden was the place of sorrow. Recalled to his ship almost immediately after his wife’s death, there had been no time to find a new home for his children. So he had left them in this wild Paradise under charge of his gentle father-in-law and of the faithful, though sharp-tongued, Tia Marta. Since then he had not been able to visit them, for his ship had been sent to the Pacific, and except for brief letters, written to Rodrigo from time to time, and for the small but punctual sums of money forwarded to a Granada bank for the family support, they had heard nothing of him.

Rodrigo, too, left much to be desired as a correspondent, although his handwriting blossomed out in bolder flourishes from year to year. He wrote of his progress in his studies, his prizes in mathematics, his interest in the new English sports, his ambition to enter an engineering school and follow his father’s career, and added in a postscript that the rest of the family were well. And all their talk on the homeward climb, after the officer had astonished and rejoiced his son by calling for him at the Institute, had still been of Rodrigo, his successes, his amusements, his future. It would have amazed that vivacious youth to know that under all the kindly responses, the father’s heart was yearning toward the little daughter, longing to find in her face, hardly more than a baby face as he remembered it, some image of her mother’s. Of Rafael he scarcely thought at all. He recollected, without interest, that the younger boy was said to take after him, while both Rodrigo and Pilarica were held to resemble their mother, and it was that resemblance which he craved. He himself recognized it in Rodrigo’s sunny looks and charming manners, but the lad’s frank egotism was all his own.

The lingerer at the gate drew a long breath and entered the garden. In spite of himself, his steps turned toward an open place among the orange trees, the place where his wife’s bed had stood, but there was no bed there now, only an old, old man, seated on the ground and idly piling up the fallen fruit into a golden pyramid. As he went on with his building, he was crooning over and over:

 
“Many laughing ladies
In a castle green;
All are dressed in yellow
And fit to serve the Queen.”
 

The new-comer, for all his self-control, gave a start of painful surprise.

“Is that your grandfather?” he asked Rodrigo.

“Ay, sir, to be sure it is, and a grandfather as good as bread,” answered the lad, with a sensitive flush, while, stooping quickly, he fairly lifted the light, swaying figure to its feet.

“Never mind the oranges now, Grandfather,” he said brightly. “See! We have an honored guest.”

The old man turned a dazed look upon his son-in-law.

“I am at your feet, sir,” he quavered, in the courteous phrase of Andalusia. “The house is yours.”

“But surely you know me, – Catalina’s husband,” pleaded the stranger, opening his arms.

The old man nodded many times, but drew back from the embrace.

“You are the young man from Saragossa who would wed my daughter Catalina,” he answered slowly. “She is away just now – I forget where – but when she comes home again, we will talk of these things.” Then, moving his fingers as if he were touching the strings of a guitar, he began to sing softly:

 
“Going and coming,
I lost my heart one day.
Love came to me laughing;
In tears Love went away.”
 

“How long has he been like this?” asked the officer, turning sharply on Rodrigo. “And why have you told me nothing of it?”

“Your pardon, sir,” pleaded the lad, “but what was there to tell? Grandfather is often confused by evening, when he is tired. He will be quite clear-headed again in the morning. Perhaps he is not so active as he was, but he does a little work about the garden and he will amuse the children hour after hour with his stories and riddles and scraps of song. He loves Pilarica better than his eyelashes.”

“Where is Pilarica?” asked the father.

“Where is Pilarica?” echoed the old man, speaking more alertly than before. “I have played the airs that please her best, and there were no dancing feet.”

“She may be helping Tia Marta with the supper,” suggested Rodrigo, turning toward the house. “And there goes Tia Marta now. Oho! Tia Marta! Tia Marta!”

“Ay, indeed! Tia Marta! Tia Marta!” came a mocking response from where a wiry figure, arrayed in saffron kerchief and purple petticoat, was seen hurrying in another direction through the shrubbery. “Always Tia Marta, from cock-crow to pigeon-roost! Now it’s Shags that brays to Tia Marta for his mouthful of chopped straw, and then it’s Roxa that mews to Tia Marta for a morsel of dried fish. It’s not slave to every Turk I was in the days when they counted me the fairest maid and the finest dancer in Seville. But all make firewood of a fallen tree.”

“This is natural, at all events,” exclaimed the officer, with the first smile since he had entered the garden. “My good Marta, I kiss your hands.”

“Don Carlos!” screamed the old servant, her sharp brown face, so like a walnut, shining with welcome as she scrambled toward him through bushes that seemed, for very mischief, to catch at her skirts and hold her back. She grasped him by the shoulders and, as he laughingly tried to free himself, pulled down his head and gave him a resounding smack on either cheek. “May all the saints be praised! To see you safe home again is as sweet as God’s blessing. But to think – oh, I could beat my bones for very rage! – that the supper to-night is not a supper of festival.”

“Never mind that!” protested Don Carlos. “Who but you taught me the saying that no bread is hard to the hungry? Let me see the children. Where is Pilarica?”

“The children! Can I have them forever like puppies under my feet? Pilarica! Do you expect me to keep her shut up in a sugar-bowl for you? She is off with Rafael, who promised to look well after her. Never fear! He has, like every boy, a wolf in his stomach, and supper-time will soon bring them home again.”

“Off with Rafael!” repeated Rodrigo, ridding himself of his satchel. “That is why he did not meet me this afternoon at the Gate of the Pomegranates. Ha! I hear him running now, – but he is alone.”

All three – for Grandfather had wandered away in search of his guitar – turned to face a bareheaded little lad, drops of sweat standing out upon his forehead and the dark red glowing through the clear brown of his cheeks. Suddenly arrested in his rush, he stood gazing up with wide, happy eyes at the father whom he recognized at once, the father for whom he cherished in secret a passionate hero-worship.

“Where is Pilarica?” three voices asked in chorus. But Rafael heard only the deep, stern tone of Don Carlos, and it struck him dumb with dismay.

“What have you done with your sister?” demanded that accusing voice again.

“Why – I – I left her – I left her at the foot of the old Watch-Tower,” faltered the culprit.

“I wanted – I wanted to meet Rodrigo. And then – and then – I – I forgot Pilarica.”

Rafael’s voice sank lower and lower under his father’s gathering frown. That father, accustomed as a naval officer to enforce strict discipline, spoke again with such cutting rebuke that the child before him shivered from head to foot.

“How long ago was it that you deserted your sister?”

“I – I don’t know,” murmured Rafael. “An hour. Two hours. I don’t know. I – I gave my watch to the Gypsy King.”

“The thief that he was to take the poor boy’s treasure!” broke in Tia Marta, nervously trying to divert the father’s wrath. “Those gypsies would rob the Holy Child of his swaddling-clothes, and St. Joseph of his ass. Ay, they would let the young Madonna walk the desert on foot and wrap the Blessed Babe in – ”

“Rodrigo,” interrupted Don Carlos, “we go to find Pilarica. And do you, Marta, never again confide my little daughter to the care of a heedless boy who cannot even guard his own pockets.”

For a moment Rafael stood as if stunned, his black head drooping. He had dreamed so often of his father’s home-coming, but never, never had he dreamed a scene like this. In the next moment Rodrigo, as he followed his father’s impatient strides toward the gate, was passed, at the Sultana Fountain, by a speeding little figure, and Don Carlos felt a pair of small, hot hands fasten on his arm.

“Oh, do me the favor, sir, of letting me go with you. I can show you exactly where I left her. She will not have gone far. She may be there yet. I know that I can find her sooner even than Rodrigo. Father! Father!”

But Don Carlos, thoroughly displeased, thrust the clinging hands away.

“We want no help of yours. Stay where you are. That is my command. If you are not old enough to understand what it means to betray a trust, at least it is time you learned obedience.”

It was midnight, and their hearts had grown heavy with dread, before they found Pilarica. The first trace they had of her was in the gypsy quarter, where the whole cave population came swarming out upon them, aroused by Xarifa’s shrill defence of the Gypsy King. He knew nothing whatever of their trumpery trash, she unblushingly declared with the little watch and chain deep in her pocket, nor did he know even by sight their nuisances of children, and he was, moreover, so sick with the misery in his bones that he had not been off his bed for seven days and nights. Rodrigo had enough to do to get his father, whose peremptory bearing only made matters worse, out of the jostling, threatening crowd before they were actually mobbed, yet he found a chance to throw a smile at a young gypsy girl whose dancing he had often admired.

“A clue, Wildrose of the Hillside! One little clue, Feet of Zephyr!” he coaxed, and Zinga, flashing him a friendly glance, pushed against him in the throng and muttered:

“There are more pearls in the Alhambra than ever the Moors dropped there.”

Acting on this doubtful hint, they had roused the indignant Don Francisco from his slumbers, and when that drowsy guardian of the old palace told them of the invasion of children that afternoon, had induced him to conduct a search for Pilarica. By the help of lanterns, for a chill rain had blown over from the Sierra Nevada, quenching the moonlight, they made their way through corridor after corridor and chamber after chamber and court after court. Don Francisco wished to shout the child’s name, but her father feared the sound might startle her out of sleep into sudden alarm, and so they pursued their anxious quest as noiselessly as might be.

“Hush!” breathed Rodrigo. He had heard, and not far off, the voice of his little sister, piping faintly:

 
“Oh, I have a dolly, and she is dressed in blue,
With a fluff of satin on her white silk shoe,
And a lace mantilla to make my dolly gay,
When I take her dancing this way, this way, this way.
 
 
“When she goes out walking in her Manila shawl,
My Andalusian dolly is quite the queen of all.
Gypsies, dukes and candy-men bow down in a row,
When my dolly fans herself, so and so and so.”
 

“It’s only Big Brother,” spoke Rodrigo quietly and, stepping forward with his lantern, he turned its light on a brave little lassie cuddled in the window-recess of what had been the boudoir of a queen. She was hugging to her heart a most comforting, companionable doll, made out of a bundle of newspapers that one of the tourists had let fall. Pilarica’s wisp of a hair-ribbon was serving as a belt and the costume was completed by Rafael’s red fez. Although the child had not slept through all the long, dark hours, the shapeless doll had borne her such good company, rustling affably whenever conversation was in order, that she had forgotten to be afraid.